Gears of War Ultimate Edition PC Errors and Fixes: Performance Issues, Cannot Download Game And More

A few tech tips for Gears of War Ultimate Edition.

Microsoft stealth launched the PC version of Gears of War: Ultimate Edition yesterday. This was great for those of you who like surprises- but it was terrible for a lot of other people, because it seems that a lot of drivers and software necessary to run the game without issues simply were not ready. As a result, there have been a lot of errors reported for the title- far more than are usually expected from a Microsoft PC offering.

If you have run into any of them, we can help you out. This guide will help you deal with most of the common errors and problems that the PC version of Gears of War Ultimate Edition has- and it will help you deal with them by listing out some fixes for them.

First, the requirements:

Recommended System Requirements For 1920×1080

OS: 64 bit Windows 10 – version 1511

Processor: Intel Core i5 3.5GHz+ or AMD FX 8-core

Memory: 16 GB RAM (4 GB VRAM)

Graphics: GeForce GTX 970 or Radeon R9 290X

Hard Drive: 60 GB available space

DirectX 12

RECOMMENDED SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS FOR 4K

OS: 64 bit Windows 10 – version 1511

Processor: Intel Core i7 @ 4Ghz or AMD FX 8-core

Memory: 16 GB RAM (6+ GB VRAM)

Graphics: Geforce GTX 980 Ti or Radeon R9 390X

Hard Drive: SSD + 60 GB available space

DirectX 12

MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

OS: 64 bit Windows 10 – version 1511

Processor: Intel Core i5 @ 2.7Ghz or AMD FX 6-core

Memory: 8 GB RAM (2 GB VRAM)

Graphics: Geforce GTX 650 Ti or Radeon R7 260x

Hard Drive: 60 GB available space

DirectX 12

Please be advised that the following methods are to be used at the sole discretion of the platform owner. GamingBolt or its staff members take no responsibility for problems that may arise or issues that may occur from trying the below. Always remember that official support is always the best support.

AMD Performance

Unfortunately, AMD card users are at a significant disadvantage if they try to run the game. It’s a nightmare, basically. Microsoft is working on fixing the problems that users with AMD cards are facing- for now, they recommend those on GCN 1.1/1.2 cards to play on 1920×1080 resolutions or lower until the update.

AMD Ambient Occlusion Setting

One of the big problems with AMD cards and Gears is that Ambient Occlusion can cause significant problems. Microsoft is working on a fix for the problem- for now, they recommend that if you are running the game on an AMD card, you switch off Ambient Occlusion.

Windows Store Download Error

Make sure you are updated to the latest version of Windows 10 (64-bit version 1511 or later) to successfully download and install the game. Unless you are updated, you cannot access the Store and download the title.

Integrated Intel GPUs on Laptop Errors

If you are running your game on a laptop with an integrated Intel GPU, you will see this message when you attempt to launch Gears of War:

“Your graphics hardware is not optimized for this game. You may experience degraded visual quality. Please visit https://gearsofwar.com/ for more information”

You need to switch your laptop’s Nvidia card to resolve this issue- unless you have an Nvidia card, you cannot run the game. (Support for AMD cards is coming soon)

Gears of War does not support G-Sync. It is strongly recommended that you turn off G-Sync before you attempt to play the game. You can do this either by switching it off in the Nvidia control panel, or by switching Lock Framerate settings to Off in the Video settings.

Lock framerate settings off only affects Vsync not Gsync. You will need to turn it off in the graphics driver.

d0x360

Lock frame rate off doesn’t effect vsync either. as of today uwp is always running with vsync on. The lock is to lock the game at 30 in case your system can handle a solid 60. A solid 30 is better than a frame rate that bounces all over the place between 30 and 60.

Vsync settings in the graphics driver dont matter either. Uwp forces it no matter what. Microsoft said they will be updating uwp so it no longer forces vsync but today it does no matter what you do.

DEVILTAZ35 .

Thanks, yeah that was a bit confusing. Still If Nvidia aren’t going to get Gsync working then they can bloody well refund me the money i paid for the Gsync monitor. They worked with Microsoft on this title so there is no excuse it isn’t Gsync compatible.

d0x360

They will get all of that sorted. There is a staggering amount of work thats been done on uwp to convert it from it’s original intention to something that’s more like we are used to. Luckily progress is as far as it is. At this point the issues are fairly minor.

There are a lot of misconceptions sadly. Gsync is on nvidia as is showing developers how to use sli. Both are compatible already from a technical standpoint. The issue is vsync is currently forced but thats not exactly a hard fix on the Microsoft side.

The other issue is how open is the platform and the answer is more than people think. Yes most apps come as sort of blobs but they are still standard x86 or x64 Win programs in there. They are just verified as not malware and packaged to prevent tampering. Again this is something Microsoft can modify for gaming and it will take more than vsync being turned off but not that much more.

Lastly a lot of issues are just down to driver issues on the GPU side with dx12 and when talking about gears specifically physx can’t be disabled for amd users which was either a mistake by the developers or done by nvidia as part of gameworks as all gameworks implementation such as hbao+ and physx is put in place by nvidia themselves not the developers. Obviously these issues need correction. All of them.

That said let’s consider that this is just the start of a sweeping change in Microsoft and the platform itself. They spent the last year and a half focused on Xbox one and getting that to be where it needed to be now give them some time to iron out these issues. Gaming is a multi billion dollar industry and Microsoft is finally serious in making it work so we should at least give them the chance to work out the kinks. They are after all transforming something designed for mobile games and apps and turning it into something else entirely.

Even Tim Sweeney has admitted he wasn’t up to date on UWP and spoke out of turn. I expect everything to be fully resolved by e3 for obvious reasons and that really isn’t far off. Until then its up to developers to make sure their games work properly and they need to change their QA steps to follow suit as dx12 isn’t 11 and it requires more care. Unlocking those performance benefits comes at a price and developers are still learning too.

DEVILTAZ35 .

Thanks for the info, much appreciated , i’ll give them a bit of time only because $30 here in Australia was a bit of a bargain for Gears of War. Games are so expensive here usually.
Also i will be playing The Division anyway from this week so will probably care less about Gears for a while at least.
I think the Physx is an oversight to be honest. Nvidia would know plenty of people with Nvidia GPU’s would struggle with full hardware Physx and that is why it is usually an option for varying degrees such as Arkham Knight.
I am sure they will fix that as well.

d0x360

I was surprised to see it at $30 and I’m in the US. Thats why I picked it up. Its not perfect but its not end of the world broken like people seem to claim. Much worse condition games have been released in the past year that used dx11 and steam.

DEVILTAZ35 .

lol very true. Still amazed some games don’t get fixed for newer PC’s and you have to alter stepping for the CPU in some of the older games you buy on steam. Gog.com seems to be far more friendly when it comes to ensuring things work.
I think the worst ones i came across was The Jedi Knight games.
As far as new games , even Arkham Knight runs great now on my 980ti so no complaints there. There is so much content in that game and i was lucky enough to get it before launch at a cheap price including season pass.

Despite it’s initial issues i have had more fun in that game than most in the past year.

d0x360

That’s cause gog is run by the fine folks at CDPR and they have proven time and time again they love gaming and want gamers to have a good experience whether its in the witcher or other games they make or their store for older titles.

DEVILTAZ35 .

Yeah i try to support them when i can, sometimes they are a bit expensive unless there is a sale though.
I have been supporting them on Witcher 3 though buying the dlc as well as probably a couple of hundred games i have bought from them over the years. Mostly point and click i think and starwars.

d0x360

I bought it today expecting the worst instead I was met with a rock solid 60fps on my AMD 290x with only slight hitches when new areas were loading, something i expect will be fixed via patch.

Everyone is acting like its all doom and gloom but the reality is much much simpler. This is one of the first full dx12 based games and GPU drivers need some fixing. Same things happened when every version of direct x launched. Once nvidia and AMD get used to dx12 it won’t be a problem anymore. We will always see driver optimizations for big titles but updates on this level are rare.

Remember Rage? Remember how major driver updates were needed? That was because the game used new tech (mega textures) and it required gpu’s to work different than before so driver updates needed to be made to properly handle the differences. Same story here everyone so just relax and wait for your vendor to update. If my 290x can run it maxed out at a solid 60 so can your equivalent or more powerful GPU.

Also keep in mind if your GPU isn’t dx12 compliant (many nvidia cards aren’t fully dx12 compliant even newer ones) you might get less than stellar performance. That’s not anyone’s fault it just means YOU need a new GPU because from here on out more and more games will be dx12 only.

HisDivineOrder

Remember when SOME AMD owners were absolutely convinced that DirectX 12 is based on Mantle? Well, this should pretty much clear that up. Remember all those benchmarks that tell you DX12 works better on AMD cards? Pretty much cleared up.

DX12 requires the developer to handle more of the handholding and development for each and every architecture the game will run on. Remember the heady days of AMD or nVidia bending over backward to make a special driver to run a game better? That was because of the fact that DX11 and lower are not low level access drivers. With low level access drivers like DX12 (or Mantle/Vulkan), the onus is on the maker of the games rather than the maker of the drivers to fix major problems and to ensure compatibility. Going forward, DX12 (and Vulkan) is going to make performance issues almost exclusively a problem of the maker of the game, which up till now has not been the case.

And what is most of the market using? nVidia. So what’s every developer going to make sure works? nVidia. AMD might get tested if it’s a Gaming Evolved title.

Perhaps AMD thought Mantle would get them ahead of the game, but nVidia owns the game.